Chargers Request Permission to Interview Matt Patricia

The Chargers have put in their request to interview Patriots Defensive Coordinator Matt Patricia:

Patricia’s playing career was short. He played Offensive Line for four years at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute while majoring in aeronautical engineering. Patricia became the Graduate assistant at RPI before moving onto the defensive line coach at Amherst and then Offensive graduate assistant at Syracuse.

It was in 2004 when Bill Belichick tabbed Matt Patricia as Offensive coaching assistant, he spent two years on the Offensive side of the ball before being promoted as the Pats Linebackers coach in 2006. Patricia moved to Safeties coach in 2011 until a year after when he became defensive coordinator for the Patriots, where he currently resides.

Patricia’s ability to bring the best out of his players without out having a ton of stars is impressive. Belichick likes to trade away his players who are about to earn top dollar on the open market and replace them with almost anybody they can. They did it with Chandler Jones and Jamie Collins yet even with their departures the Patriots are the #1 seed in the AFC heading into the playoffs and the defense hasn’t missed a beat. His particular success with linebackers bodes well for the Chargers because that happens to be the teams strong suit on defense with the emergence of Jatavis Brown, Denzel Perryman and RFA Korey Toomer.

Other impressive qualities about Matt Patricia:

-Obviously, he’s a rocket scientist.

-As an assistant he convinced Belichick and the staff to go digital rather than using pen and paper.

-Was one the first known coaches to use analytics.

-Mike Vrabel told a story that Patricia’s film breakdown each week is so detailed that he had it down to formation, down and distance, spot on the field and specific time of year (because of weather conditions).

-When relaying plays to his defense, he’s known to take every second of the allotted time, not only calling the play but also as many reads and adjustments as he can fit in.

-To add onto that, Malcolm Butler mentioned Patricia was the one who told him about the pass on the goal line in Super Bowl XLIX against the Seahawks when everyone else in the world thought Seattle was running the ball.

The downside? Bill Belichick has built a particular system in New England and his coaching tree has proven to not have success at the NFL level in terms of producing a quality head coach. Belichick’s coaching tree has produced such head coaching duds as Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini, Jim Schwartz, Nick Saban, Josh McDaniels and Bill O'Brien. Can Matt Patricia break the curse of the Belichick coaching tree?